DESCENT INTO DEMENTIALAND

Hobbs shares her ongoing journey of helping her husband navigate the devastating effects of Alzheimer’s disease.

That author and her spouse, Mike,met in the mid-1960s during their sophomore year at Indianapolis-based Butler University, and in 1970, they married: “I adored Mike, and my new husband promised to love, honor, and entertain me.” It’s a pledge he kept, she says, and they’ve remained together, through thick and thin, ever since. The author writes that she doesn’t know exactly when Mike’s battle with dementia began, but the first sign she recalls was during an evening in 2008. During dinner, Mike told her that he couldn’t remember important information in his new position as the chief operating officer of a startup company that conducted drug trials. Two weeks later, he was fired, and it was a financial and emotional shock. They left California and re-established themselves in Nevada, and in the ensuing years, the couple was able to continue activities they enjoyed, including traveling, skiing, and playing golf—although Mike began to experience occasional verbal and memory lapses. These eventually became more severe, and by 2017, Mike was showing signs of dementia; the next year, he was officially diagnosed with logopenic progressive aphasia, a rare, progressive illness, caused by Alzheimer’s disease, which involves language difficulties. Hobbs is a seasoned memoirist, and her lucid explanations of the various stages of her husband’s condition, accompanied by charts, presents a wealth of facts on his disease and its effects. Some of the statistics that she provides are frightening, and some anecdotes are difficult to read, as she tells of watching and caring for a man who was always the life of the party slip into quietude and confusion. However, what makes this memoir truly riveting is the intensely personal, intimate love story at its heart. She openly recounts her own struggles with a loss of freedom, frustrations, and fears for the future, but she also notes that seven years after his official diagnosis, her husband still shows glimmers of humor, and he still tells her that he loves her.

A sometimes-upsetting but poignant and informative remembrance.